Potlatch Already?

I cannot believe this year has flown by so quickly. I look around the village and realize just how much we have gone through this year. To start, there was a gigantic flood in November. I have never seen the water come as high in the village as it did then. A large portion of our village ended up living in the school while the water went back down. The flood brought large chunks of ice through the village, destroying anything in its path. About half the village was without water/sewer for a few months due to the damage from the flood. Most of the village has water/sewer now, but some residence have to wait until summer for their water and sewer to get reconnected. I took some wonderful high school students to the Lead On! conference at the end of November. It was a wonderful opportunity to connect with some students I do not have very much contact with on a regular basis. It was great to see them step up and learn how to make a positive impact on their community. We are working on a community project as I am writing this blog. More details about that to come! We hosted the Junior High Downriver Basketball Tournament. The students here really played their hearts out! The girls made it all the way to second place overall. Their second to last game ended with a heart-stopping 3 point shot literally in the last second, which ended up winning the game for them! The cheers were deafening!!! I am getting ready to take two students to the State Science Fair in Anchorage at the end of this month. My daughter and her best friend really worked hard on their project and are excited to go present to the state judges. I know they will do fantastic! I am excited about Potlatch coming up this weekend here in Kotlik. It is a wonderful celebration of the Yupik culture and I look forward to listening to Yupik songs and watching the wonderful dancing. I view Potlatch as a milestone in our school year. This event signals the end of the school year. Shortly after Potlatch we will be giving the state tests, which are followed by the end of the year wrap up. I cannot believe this time of year has snuck up on me already. I look forward to posting pictures of the wonderful Potlatch our village will be hosting. I will try to stay on top of more postings throughout the next few months. I can't believe it has been so long since I have posted. We have had a crazy, busy year as a family and I am just getting a moment to collect my thoughts here. Jacqueline :)

Thanksgiving Week

I try to take as much time every year around Thanksgiving to really reflect about what I am thankful for. I have been so blessed in my life, I feel one day is just not enough. This week was a fun week at the school. Our school does something special each year, they offer a family Thanksgiving meal during school on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Everyone in the community is welcome to come in and eat with the students. The kitchen staff puts together a traditional Thanksgiving meal that is very yummy! It is one of the nice things about living in bush Alaska, there is a strong sense of community here unlike anywhere I have ever lived.

Ethan's class put on a little song for the families. It was quite adorable! The kids were doing their best but in first grade, you can't expect too much! Some of the kids forgot some words, others forgot some motions but they all tried their best! We went to their class after their performance and had snacks with the children. Ethan was so excited for the performance that I caught him singing their song a few times during the week.

Like last year, the teaching staff got together to celebrate Thanksgiving together since we are all up here without our families. It is nice to know that you have people to celebrate with. The food was delicious and it made the day so much less stressful knowing that we only had to make a few things instead of the entire feast. The meal was great and the company was even better. After our meal, many people hung around and played some games and just sat back and talked. It was so nice to spend time with such wonderful people outside of work. Theres enjoyed being loved on by so many people at the dinner and was completely wiped out when we came home. She got into her Christmas pajamas and went straight to bed! I can't wait to share Christmas with our newest addition!

What did you do for Thanksgiving?

The Grand Party is Over

Last weekend we hosted our daughter's 11th birthday party at our house. All went well. We had some great food and fun times. Morgan wanted to play Just Dance 3, so the girls went and then some of the teachers played. I got to say, it was very entertaining. Especially since the girls had some previous experience and the adults didn't!!!

The dancing went on most of the night for the girls and then the sleepover started. Morgan had a few friend stay the night. They watched Troop Beverly Hills from WAY back in the day and were finally forced to go to sleep! I know, I'm mean for making the night come to an end and forcing them to sleep but I have to think about myself and the crabby kids I would be dealing with the next day.

See what I mean? Some kids just can't handle the fun! Ethan was playing video games the next day, when he fell over, fast asleep!

On a side note, did I ever mention our oven of death? Well, our oven leaks gas when it is turned on. Which is totally safe, I know! So we are trying not to use it this year. We bought a Super Wave oven, from the infomercials. It works really well, but the cake kind of took a beating in it. We had just bought it and weren't used to the quick cooking. I tried cooking the cake in it and ended up with a burnt on top and gooey in the middle cake. I had to do some cake surgery and cook it more. It ended up looking rather pathetic. So I had to heap on a ton of frosting to even it out and make it look good. Morgan did the decorating once the pink frosting was on. I think it ended up looking rather awesome! What do you think?

Birthdays in the Bush

Our daughter is turning 11 on Monday and we are preparing for her birthday, which will be held at our house tomorrow. As I am getting ready, I am thinking of all the differences between a "typical" birthday party and what we do here. First of all, there is nowhere to go to have the party. That leaves our house as the destination every birthday. This is nice because we aren't running around in traffic, trying to host the party somewhere. But this stinks because that means we are stuck cleaning all night after the party ends. LOTS of dishes... And did I ever mention that we don't have a dishwasher here? That means all those dishes get washed by hand. Another great thing about birthdays here is everyone brings food to share. We aren't doing all the cooking ourselves. We make the main dish and everyone shows up with a side. It doesn't always translate to a great combination but the food always gets eaten. Sometimes you might have 3 or 4 carb options, which is totally fine by me! I like how laid back the birthdays are here. It seemed like I was always stressed out getting ready for one of the kids' birthday but now I sit back and enjoy them with everyone else. I will post some pictures in the next few days to show our lovely birthday party for our precious daughter!

Halloween Goodness

Halloween is a huge deal out here! People of all ages go trick-or-treating and most of them are dressed in costume. The Student Council put on a Halloween Carnival this year and that brought in almost the entire village. The games were fun for those who were playing and for those who were watching.

The carnival allowed the kids to have some Halloween fun inside where it is warm. There wasn't much snow this year for Halloween but it was very cold and the wind was blowing like crazy. I had to put all of Ethan's snow gear on him, underneath his costume. He was the chubbiest skeleton ever!

Costumes are hard to get out here. Ethan and Morgan both picked out costumes online and we ordered them. Ethan's came, Morgan's did not. So Morgan ended up putting together a costume with what we had around the house and ended up being a boxer. I think she looks pretty good, don't you? Theres' costume was bought by my parents and sent up here. Living up here takes a little bit of planning for the holidays! Now the planning starts for Christmas before we even get to Thanksgiving!!!!

Back to the Daily Grind

Coming back to teach after the first quarter has ended was a little stressful! I came back to Kotlik to discover that my long-term substitute was horrible and taught my students nothing! But thankfully, my partner teacher, did a lot of work in my classroom to help keep my students learning a little bit. My students basically lost an entire quarter of the school year. I came back to school and had to conduct parent-teacher conferences on my forth day back at work. Despite all the stress, I am thankful to come home to our new little addition.

Isn't she adorable? Going back to work is so easy when you have a job in a place like I do. I go home each day for lunch. I walk to and from work, which takes literally one minute. I don't sit in traffic for half an hour to an hour each way. I have an amazing husband that watches our daughter while I work. He is so amazing! I come home for lunch or after school and he's playing with her and ready to tell me all the cute things she did that day! What a life!

Over 100 Degrees!

It's amazing just how a few degrees can make such a huge difference in my comfort level. I do not like being in 90 degree heat but the difference between 100 degrees and 105 degrees will take your breath away! Just walking from your car to your door in 105 degrees is like being punched in the stomach and melting all at the same time. I grew up in Las Vegas and never grew accustom to the heat. It is simply unbearable! My advice for anyone visiting Las Vegas in the summer is to stay inside as much as possible. Or spend a lot of time in a pool.

In Vegas for Summer

This summer has been an adventure on its own. We came back to Las Vegas for the summer to spend time with family and give birth to the newest addition to our family. I am due in the beginning of September and will have a long, hot summer. When we left Kotlik in May it was around 30 degrees F and when we arrived in Las Vegas it was around 100 degrees F. I can't wait until the weather cools down but I know it is a long ways away! I will definitely be posting more as summer progresses. Sorry I haven't been posting as often this year as I should have. I will stay on top of the postings more!

Christmas Caroling in bush Alaska

Our village used to participate in Christmas caroling years ago. People fondly remember children going door to door, singing songs to the adults and elders. Then for some unknown reason, the tradition disappeared. No one remembers why the children quit singing, but they did. So this year a few of us teachers and adults got together and decided to bring it back. Well, we decided on a Tuesday that we were going caroling on that Thursday. It didn't give us too much time to plan but we wanted to do it before it got swept under a rug for another year. We made plans, got candy canes, made flyers, made announcements, got hot chocolate and cups, etc. and then Thursday came. After school the weather started to get a little windy. Then it got real windy and cold!!! Well, we planned on caroling, so we WENT caroling! We were freezing and getting blown around in the middle of a blizzard, but by God we were caroling. We decided to only go to a few elders' houses but ended up going to more houses than planned. The children loved it and we enjoyed the time together, bringing some cheer and holiday spirit to the community. When we came in, some of the children were sad that we didn't stay out caroling for longer!

Some of the group after caroling drinking hot chocolate and warming up before going back out into the blizzard to go home. We met and departed as a group from the school.

A few of my students that joined us caroling waiting in line for some delicious hot chocolate, being silly!

We had a great time together doing something to bring some joy into peoples' lives. I felt so happy being able to plan and participate in such a fun event. The children were also very happy and enjoyed doing something "new."

Until my next adventure,
Jacqueline

Winter Life...

Well the days are definitely getting shorter, dawn comes up around 11 am and sunset is around 4:30 pm. The days are short and the cold is really setting in. I fell in love with a little puppy a few weeks ago and no one seemed to want it. I talked to the "owner" and they wanted $80 for it. They wanted the money even though they never watched it or took care of it. I tried to take care of him but I had to give him back nightly. Ethan was in LOVE with him.

Well a few days after we fell in love with the puppy, the owners decided to let it run free again and it got trapped in an abandoned building. It ended up freezing to death. We were all very sad when we heard. Living out here, animals simply do not have the same value as they do in the Lower 48.

On a lighter note, one night Ethan was watching Glen measuring his body fat for his workouts. Ethan grabbed the calipers as soon as Glen put them down and tried to take his own body fat measurement. It was too cute to not take a picture!

I will keep blogging my Alaska adventures. Until next time...

Walking the Path of Subsistence

Many of the people in the village live by subsistence, or living off the land through hunting and gathering. The other day our pastor called my husband up and asked him to help him set nets in the river for fish. My husband took our s son while I was in school to help set nets. They had fun chopping holes in the ice of the river to put nets in to catch fish. The next day they went back and pulled the nets. They caught a TON of She fish. I don't know what their technical name is, that is what all the people in the village call them. The pastor gave my husband two fish for all of his help. My husband came home and put them on our porch until we could get around to cleaning them.

Here are the two beauties waiting to get cleaned.

Later, after dinner we decided it was time to clean them so we could get them out of the snow before the local dogs came to eat them. I started cleaning the first fish while Glen was doing the dishes. Good set up, huh?

I couldn't believe how much blood those fish had in them when I cut into them. I never really thought that fish had much blood, but apparently they do! When I was pulling the guts out, I must have cut into the stomach because small fish came tumbling out onto the table from the stomach. Some were partially digested while some look like they just got swallowed before our fish was caught! Yum!

Growing up we rarely went fishing, maybe once or twice in my childhood, and we never ate what we caught. It was strictly catch and release. I had never cleaned a fish until we moved up here. Thankfully our neighbors took us under their wing and showed me how to clean a fish. Now I feel much more comfortable cleaning the fish. There is something deeply satisfying about catching and preparing your own meat and fish. It really helps you feel in touch with your surroundings!

Till my next adventure...
Jacqueline

Alaska's Storm of the Century!!!

When moving to a new location the last thing you ever think is that you might be a part of the biggest storm to hit that location in over a century. Well, I am glad to say that I actually witnessed one of the biggest storms to hit the coast of Alaska in a century. It actually wasn't too horrible where we are located. Kotlik was right in the middle of two raging storms, one to our north and one to our south. We got some wicked winds and some crazy flooding but everyone in our village was safe. Many had to camp out at the school because their homes flooded or their housing was unsafe during the 80 mph winds. Glen walked through those winds to and ice storms to go to the post office and pick up our new parkas. When he returned his face was wind chapped. Poor guy!

Here's a picture of me in my new parka by my new lake house!

The front door to our house has some great cracks around it and the storm pushed all kinds of snow through the door. We hung a blanket to try to keep the snow to a minimum in our mud room. As you can see quite a bit of snow still managed to make it into our house. We had a few inches of snow in our mud room by the end of the night.

Our school sits above the ground a few feet and the flooding made it to our school and started a little lake and some rivers around the school.

The river was frozen over when the storm hit but the flooding caused the ice to lift up and keep freezing. The boats were all on land before the river originally froze, now they are in the middle of a giant ice river. The river rose about ten feet from its original position. It was quite an experience to see everything changing because of the storm.

I can't wait to see what lies in store for me this winter. Till my next adventure posting...

Jaki :)

Inservice Training

This Thursday and Friday the teachers in our school have gone to Mountain Village for training. It was quite the adventure just getting onto the plane to leave our village for our training village. About seven teachers headed down to the runway to get on to the first plane leaving and I was supposed to be on the second plane leaving. We got a call that they needed two more teachers on the first plane. Lore and I went out to the plane by way of "Honda." Well a Honda in the Bush is not a car, it is a quad. So Lore and I were bogged down with our stuff sitting on the back of a quad, getting raced to the runway. We were making good time, which meant our pants were getting soaked. The rain had just stopped minutes before we left, so the boardwalks were covered in rain and mud. The back of my pants were completely coated in mud when we arrived at the plane.

Here is a good picture of my muddy pants!


The pilot announced that he could only take one more person, not two. So Lore decided to wait for the next plane so she could fly with her husband. I got into the plane and we took off. The Bush pilots are very nice, but our pilot seemed to be doing everything but actually looking out the window. He was filling out forms, cleaning up the floor on the plane, and taking pictures of me flying the plane with my camera! He was very good-humored. He explained all the different things on the dashboard and what they do. He demonstrated some of the functions of the things on the dashboard by flying up and down and side to side. It was great fun for me, but unfortunately some of the other passengers got very sick feeling.

Here is our pilot hard at work, filling out paperwork while flying a plane.

Our happy crew flying into Mountain Village, Alaska!

Here is the photo the pilot took of me flying the plane, while he was supposed to be flying the plane.

I will post more later about our adventure...
Jaki :)

Wow! I need to catch you up!

Hello!
    I can't believe I have been so busy that I have not updated my blog since I started packing!  Well we made it safe and sound to Kotlik, Alaska.  We had a wonderful trip leaving Las Vegas and moving up here.  We spent time with a lot of our family.  We spent a week in California with Glen's parents and family.  We got to visit some friends, some of which gave me guff for not updating my blog!  Then we took off on a train to visit our family in the Seattle area.
    The train trip was very fun going from Los Angeles, CA to Tacoma, WA.  It took almost 40 hours to complete the trip but we got to see some beautiful countryside.  I love traveling through Oregon, the forests are so beautiful and the vegetation is gorgeous!  After spending a week with family in Washington, we left early in the morning for the airport to fly to Anchorage.  Well apparently I turned off the rental car's headlights at the gas station on the way to the airport and we ended up getting pulled over by the police!  Needless to say, Glen was not pleased.  The police officer was very nice and understanding and he let us go without a ticket.  Whew!
    The week of training in Anchorage was fun but intense.  I was in training for 4 days with 1 day for shopping.  The kids ran around with Glen and explored Anchorage while I was over-stuffing my brain with WAY too much information. We went shopping at WalMart in Anchorage and had the items shipped out to our new location through the Bush Mail system in the back of the store.  Alaska is one of the few places that probably still does C.O.D.'s.  Poor Lore, our new counselor, was stuck shuttling everyone around to different locations all day so we could shop.
    Our flight to the village was planned on a Sunday, but the school district pulled some strings to get them to fly us our on Saturday.  I don't know if that was helpful but it was another adventure.  I was in the first few to get dropped off at the airport on Saturday morning and when I went to the counter, they said we did not have a flight scheduled!  I argued with them for a while, then called the new principal.  He made some calls, we got on our flight after about 2 hours of craziness arguing back and forth with the airline.  We ended up having a layover in St. Mary's, which is a shed and a runway (I wouldn't call it an airport).  After waiting for a while, we didn't know if we were going to be able to fly out that day because of heavy fog.  The fog lifted a little, then we all had to run out and jump into 6 person planes before the fog settled again.
    We made it to our village in one piece, with quite a story to tell about the troubles and trials of actually getting to the village.
    The village was much nicer than I expected.  It is small but there are TWO grocery stores.  Well they aren't lower 48 grocery stores, they are more like large gas stations but still they have food.  Sure, the food is WAY overpriced, but if you are craving a can of olives and have $8 to spare, you are in luck!
    The villagers have been very welcoming and inviting.  They had an Eskimo dance for the new teachers and we were invited to stand up and participate.  And you know I can't turn down an invitation like that, so I jumped in and did some dancing.  It was a ton of fun and I cannot wait until the next Eskimo dance!





By the way, I'm the one in the UNLV sweatshirt!

I had so much fun Eskimo dancing. I had to really watch the woman in front of me so I wouldn't mess up! She was a beautiful dancer, very elegant. All the Eskimo dances mean something, like they are about a hunt or an animal or something. I will try to figure out how to post videos on here so you can really get the experience of the drummers, singers, and dancers!

Till later!
Jaki :)

Getting Ready...

Today I continue to pack my family's belongings in boxes and bins to ship to Kotlik, Alaska.  We have to ship everything through the post office because there are no roads out to Kotlik, so therefore there is no way of driving up a truck with our belongings.  I am moving to Kotlik to teach sixth grade, my husband will be a stay at home father while doing some internet work, our daughter will be in fifth grade, and our son may be in preschool.  We are leaving Las Vegas, Nevada to move to a village that is called home to under seven hundred people.  We are moving site unseen, it is definitely an adventure for us.  We have moved around quite a bit throughout our marriage but never so drastic of a move.  It will test us in every way.  I believe we will come out stronger and better than before we moved there.

Am I nervous?

Maybe a little, but I am definitely more excited than anything else.  I look forward to challenging myself to provide for my family in new ways.  There is no WalMart or grocery stores open all night.  We must enter our village with enough food and items to hold us over for months.  There is a tiny general store in the village but you don't want to use it too much as the prices are very high. 

Continue to check in to see how my family and I fair in our new surroundings!

Jacqueline Gosch