Monday, October 26, 2009

Tummy Time


Thank you Sandy

For a my birthday/Christmas present my mother-in-law Sandy got me a sewing machine and even had it shipped up here to me. Up until now I had been borrowing one. My Mom has been sending me fabric and other materials and I have also been ordering from a web site Fabric.com. I have had a lot of fun working on some projects. Here are some of the things i have done:





Since i don't have any stuffing i used packing paper to stuff the green and white "pumpkin" but while we were at the school visiting with the shop teacher i had in idea. He had just finished planing and piece of wood (which means to cut it down to reduce the thickness) and it had left a pile of strips of confetti-like wood. So i stuffed the large pumpkin with this sawdust and it worked really well. I think i may re-stuff the others.






Here are some more pictures of Tom and the girls.



Sunday, October 25, 2009

Clarification

Hey everyone, just to clear things up i do not have strep. I just have had a LITTLE sore throat which did not amount to anything. The villagers here seem to call every sore throat "strep" and that is why we called it that in parentheses. In fact we are all doing well, with the exception of Ellora who we are beginning to think is bothered when i eat onions as well as milk. Hopefully that is all and she will feel better soon. Not much has happened this week. The snow is finally starting to stick but we only have about an inch or so. We a supposed to get more this week. We are excited for Halloween on Saturday. There will be activities at the School on Friday and we will do a little trick or treating on Saturday. (like around the 5 plex) We will post pictures.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Breakthrough!!

Chalyse was feeling her usual self yesterday. I just thought I would give the update, although that's not why I'm writing.

About a month ago I gave a unit test in my English classes. My 8th grade class did horribly. Half of the class REFUSED to take the test for most of the period, and instead sat and talked, despite my best efforts to quiet them, separate them, punish them, etc. Today, on the other hand, I gave another unit test, and every single person took the test quietly. They even did the writing sections!!!!!

How did I work the miracle? Besides a LOT of praying, I came up with a system that I call "Respect Points." The way it works is that I divided them into teams, and they earn points for each member of their team who is on time doing what they're supposed to be doing, and additional points for when their entire team is being respectful. They lose points when any person on their team does something or says something disrespectful. At the end of the period, the winning team gets to leave 1 minute early while the other teams get to stay and practice being respectful. If a team has negative points, they get to stay one minute for each negative point. If the losing team(s) have less than 10 points, they get to stay 30 seconds into their break.

It has worked like a charm. I just hope these lessons in respect carry over into the rest of their lives, but most especially into high school. We seem to have a worse problem there than in the middle school with respect.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

No Foyer at This Church

This morning we called in to church right at 10:30, when our church starts, and the automated conference call system announced to us that the conference we had selected was currently full! We were a little disappointed, as you could imagine. No worries, though, because we called back a couple of minutes later and got in.

There have been two bugs going around since we got here. One is "strep" and the other is the flu. Camille has been battling strep the last few days, but it hasn't really hit her very hard, yet. Last night, Chalyse fell off her bed at 12:20 and naturally started screaming. We rushed in there, and put her back on her bed. While we were comforting her, she threw up and then rolled in it. We were worried that she had a concussion from falling out of bed, but we couldn't find any bumps on her head, and her pupils were contracting properly. She continued to throw up for the next 2 hours. We decided to put on a movie to keep her awake to see if she had a concussion. She finally stopped throwing up near the end of the movie.

This morning, she was over her vomiting, but diarrhea had replaced it. We changed, between the two girls, about 9 stinky diapers before noon, half of which leaked. We decided to put plastic underpants on Chalyse to protect her clothes. She appears to be feeling a lot better, though.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Looking up to my big sister.

Natives are always coming by to sell us art work that they have made. This one was really neat with lots of detail. They use a lot of walrus ivory in there art. The thing he is standing on is a piece of whale baleen.



Ellora and her fun sticky-up hair.



Some of the girls in the village came over to play with Chalyse and show us some of the dances they learned on Eskimo dance class. A favorite activity for the kids is visiting the teachers.



Sleeping in the stroller.



Ellora craning to watch Chalyse play.

Updates

Chalyse still loves her rocks. She asks to play with them everyday. The other night she insisted on sleeping with a couple of them. I sure am getting sick of them so when she thew most of them behind the couch I was glad. She still has a few. She keeps finding them in all of her little hiding places and so do I.

Ellora is doing well. She tries to eat everything (her blanket, her hand, my hand, her toys). I keep thinking she hungry but she just wants to put things in her mouth. She loves to be talked to and talking back. She loves her big sister. She will sit and watch her play for a long time and loves it when Chalyse brings her toys and piles them on top of her. It makes her very sad when Chalyse is mean to her (Sometime Chalyse will hit her or pull her hair to get attention).

Tom is very busy! He does life guarding 4 times a week. They are paying him well for it and in the mornings twice a week he and some other teachers take turns life guarding and swimming laps. It will be good for him. He will be starting an after school Japanese class this next week. They will meet twice a week for about 2 hr each time. They are also keeping him very busy with his regular duties. He is teaching 5 different subjects. He also has ILP's due soon for each student and can't seem to find time to work on them even though he goes an hour early every day. And one Saturday a month he has in service which is code for useless meetings all day. This Saturday is it.

As for me I'm keeping busy. Between the girls and house work I can't seem to get much else done. Everyone around here keeps worrying that i am getting bored. I don't see how i could. Maybe a little lonely but never bored. I have a lot of projects i want to work on and i don't know if i will ever get to them. Oh, and at the beginning of the year we brought some rolls to a dinner some of the teachers were having and now i have people asking to buy them.

Friday, October 9, 2009

The Pool's Open!

One of the reasons that Camille and I thought we could do okay up here is they have a pool that we can use on a regular basis. Well, when we got up here, we found out that the pool had been out of commission for about 6 years. They had said they were for sure going to fix it this time, though.

Well, they fixed it this last summer, but because the pump had sat unused for so long, some of the gaskets had deteriorated and we needed a new pump. In the meantime, I became one of the lifeguards for the pool for whenever it was ready to go, and I was given the job of re-certifying the other lifeguard who was planning on being the lifeguard originally.

After the pump FINALLY got here, Cathy, the other lifeguard, had to retrain the maintenance staff on how to maintain pools (she's a trained pool inspector). This was only a little chaotic. The chlorine was either too high or too low. The pH was all over the place. When we finally had everything to where we needed it, the heater decided to act up and the pool heated up to 96+ degrees. Not quite a hot tub, but way too warm for swimming. The problem this time is that we had told people we were going to open just before it happened.

So, after nearly two months of trying, we finally opened the pool for students to come in last night. Camille brought the girls. Chalyse had a blast in the pool. She doesn't get out much, and being able to play around in the water was so fun for her.

By the way, this isn't exactly an Olympic-sized pool. It's about 25 yards long and two good-sized lanes wide. The depth ranges from 3 ft. on either end and 4 ft in the middle.

Monday, October 5, 2009

October in Inupiat is Sikkuvik. Which means the months when everything freezes.

Yummy Shredded Beef Enchilada Casserole

This is a new recipe Tom and I tried and it turned out really good.

Shredded beef:

2 lbs frozen roast
1 can tomato soup
1 cup water
1 tsp beef bullion
Garlic powder
Onion salt
Pepper

Put frozen roast in baking pan and add soup, water and bullion around it.
cover top of roast with garlic powder, onion salt, and pepper.
Cover and bake at 250 degrees all day. About 8 hours. If roast is thawed bake for about 5 hours.

Red Enchilada sauce:

1 15 oz can of tomato sauce
1 cup water
1/2 onion
1/2 green bell pepper
2 Tbsp chili powder
1 clove garlic minced
Dash of cumin
Dash of oregano
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Blend up onion and pepper (or chop finely) You try different kinds of peppers.
Put all ingredient in sauce pan and simmer for 20 min. Chill for a few hours.

When roast is done drain off fat and extra juices (about half of it) and set aside. You can add some back in if it is too dry. Shred beef with a fork.

Layer in a baking dish corn tortilla chips, beef, enchilada sauce and grated cheese. Cover top generously with grated cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes.