Fun Packing

The past several days we've been getting ready to move up to Alaska. It's been exciting getting new clothes and warm coats. We've had some interesting episodes, also.

We've been trying to figure out the cheapest way to move our stuff up there. We considered trying to bring a lot of our things on the plane with us, but then we discovered that our last flight only allots 50 lbs per person, and everything more than that they charge at $1.10/lb. We looked at shipping it with UPS, but their rates were outrageous. We decided to go with the US Postal Service. We found out that it is more economical to ship in larger boxes, until you reach their limit, of course. We packed everything we want to bring that we can do without for the next few weeks in some large boxes. As we were estimating the weight and plugging it into the online postage calculator, though, we found out that you can't ship anything that weighs more than 70 lbs. to Alaska. Our kitchen box was right around there if not well over 70 lbs, according to our scale. We decided to take it to the post office and have them weigh it. When I got there and had it weighed, it was 69 lbs 4.8 oz. I also brought our next heaviest box, and it was 66 lbs 7 oz. We felt pretty lucky.

Chalyse has been a little stressed out with the move. I wish we could explain to her why everything is happening and that it will be okay, but I guess she'll have to be surprised. With all the boxes and junk strewn everywhere, she often finds herself stranded in a corner unable to find her way out and just whines to us. She's also had trouble cutting a tooth and hasn't been eating very well, consequently.

Also, I have to go to district inservice in Barrow starting on the 3rd. I was told that I would leave on the 2nd, but then was informed that I would have to leave on the 1st, because there aren't any flights that would get me there on time if I waited until the 2nd. We weren't going to even get to Point Hope until around 10:00 am on the 1st, so naturally Camille and I were freaking out a little bit. We wanted to be able to get situated a little bit (and get mundane things like food and maybe a phone) before I had to leave them for a week. I would have about 6 hours, according to their plan, but I would have to fly back to Anchorage through Kotzebue and stay the night there and catch a connection to Barrow the next day. The assistant principal has suggested we get a charter plane and fly all of the Point Hope new hires up together (which may end up costing just as much as the alternative). I hope we can do that!!

All in all, we are doing okay and excited for the move!