Whaling

Last night, our neighbor who is a son of a whaling captain invited me to go with them whaling. I was excited to go, because outsiders only get to go if they're invited. I would get to see the natives whale. They do it more or less the same way that they have for hundreds of years.

The plan was to leave at the crack of dawn (about 5 or 6 in the morning), and I could come back when someone went back to get lunch for the crew. It didn't end up working that way, though. Between members of the crew who hadn't gotten to sleep in time the night before and others who couldn't find a babysitter, we didn't end up leaving until 12:30 or 1:00.

We rode out onto the ice to their spot. It was about 1-2 miles out. There was a channel in the ice about a mile wide where crews were whaling. I got my camera out to take pictures, but of course it wouldn't work with the cold.

I figured out that the way they hunt whale is they wait for the whales to come close to the edge of the ice, then as the whale passes by their spot, they smoothly launch their boat and approach the whale from behind, then they harpoon it with a harpoon attached to a buoy. This way, they can trace it when it goes deep. They then get it with a harpoon that has an explosive in it.

It didn't take too long for a whale to come by close enough for the crew to give chase. I stood looking on as they got ready to launch their boat, when one of the members pointed to a spot on the boat and told me to get there. It's not very common for outsiders to be allowed to help out, so I was pretty honored. Over the course of the day, we chased after about 5 whales. Some of them were within about 20 yards of us.

Another whaling crew was able to get a buoy attached to a whale, but they lost track of it under the ice.

There was a period of about 30-45 minutes when no whales came close enough, but on the other side of the channel there was a group of whales playing and splashing around. It was pretty cool to see. I probably ended up seeing at least 12 whales, all of them bowhead whale.

I'm going to be really sore tomorrow!

Heavy

Yesterday I was putting the girls down for a nap. While I was feeding Ellora, Chalyse asked "Hungry piter (caterpiller)?"

"Okay, go get it." I said

"and mouse book."

"Okay we'll read mouse book too." Chalyse ran out of the room.

A few minutes later I heard her coming down the hall panting "Heavy, heavy." She came into the room with a stack of books about a foot high.

Northern Lights

Mandy is going to be leaving at the end of this week, and she hadn't had a chance to see the aurora, yet. I had seen a couple of fading displays in the morning on my way to school, but nothing spectacular. Although, when I say "nothing spectacular," I mean that relatively. The first time I saw the aurora, it took my breath away.

We kept an eye on the auroral forecasts, but nothing ever worked out. Either the weather would be good and there would be no aurora, or there would be a huge aurora and be completely overcast. A couple of nights ago, however, it finally worked out. We set the alarm for 3:00 a.m. (our local midnight). When we looked out the window in the early hours of the morning, I could plainly see the aurora despite the streetlights near our house. We got dressed and went outside. The display wasn't as big as some that you see on tv, but it was beautiful.

The pale-green river of light flowed from the northeast, splitting here, rejoining there as it occasionally overflowed and dripped its light into space.

Spring Fever

We were getting sick of the wintery background, so here is our new, happy sunflower background. We just need to get a new family picture to go with it.

Midnight Chatty

Spring is in the air. We have finally gotten out of the negatives (for now). Today, it got up to 39! They are getting ready for whaling. They just have to wait for enough of the ice to melt to have some open water.



This piece was made out of whale baleen and walrus ivory by our friend Lloyd Vincent

Ellora and I went to Anchorage last week for a well baby check and to get her helmet adjusted. The verdict: Ellora is big for her age (about 90 percentile) she is still one immunization short of being almost on track and we miss our pediatrician. Also, she is almost done with her helmet...I guess. I told the orthopedic we cant afford to make another trip but that we will be in Utah in May so we will go back to the guy we originally went to and have him follow up. The Orthopedic said to have Ellora wear it for one more month and anything that isn't corrected at that point will either take care of itself or it won't matter because she has hair. Not exactly what I wanted to here but I think all will turn out okay, anyway.


We had such a good thing going for a short blessed while. I finally got the girls on the perfect sleeping schedule. Most days they would both wake up around 7 or 7:30. Ellora would take a morning nap, they would nap together in the afternoon and go to sleep so well at 8. But then, of course, Ellora and I went to Anchorage which messed up her sleeping schedule and while we were gone Chalyse started having nightmares. They have really upset her. She talks about it all the time. We have told her that monsters aren't real and she seems to get it but she has been having such trouble going to sleep ever since. Then she wakes up, upset during the night and sleeps in because she didn't sleep well. This causes her to skips her nap.

On top of all this we had daylight savings which we definitely didn't need because we were already 2 hours ahead of where we should be because all of Alaska is on Juneau time. So now we are 3 hours ahead and the sun doesn't go down till 9, meaning it is light out until 10 but it is still not coming up until 9 or 10. "High noon" is at about 3:00 in the afternoon. Oh well, soon it won't matter anyway because it will be light out all the time. We bought some curtains so hopefully that will help.


Chalyse has been so chatty lately. Last night she woke up around 3 and when I went in there to sit with her for a while she talked and talked. She said "Dream monsters. Monsters not real. Blanket pink real. Blanket yellow real. Paizy real. Mommy real. Daddy real. Daddy sleeping. Daddy tired. Meese tired. Meese sleep." Then she would lay down and pretend to snore for a bit. She went on and on for about 15 minutes. It was so cute I was having a hard time telling her to be quiet.


Anyway, that is what is going on with us. We will be coming home in the beginning of May. We can't wait to see everyone and start working on our tans.

Here are some silly messy faces:









Garden vegetable mousse.

Ellora Crawling 2-26-10

And She's Off...

Ellora seems to have done SO much growing in the last...DAY. Last Friday she figured out how to crawl but she still preferred to scoot. (I have been trying to upload the video I took of it but between our very slow internet and a little girl who thinks it is funny to turn off the computer I keep running into "technical difficulties." I will try again today.) Anyway yesterday Ellora decided that she preferred crawling and was all over the house. Down the hall and into the the bathroom, into the laundry room to play with the vacuum and she even made a break for it when the front door into the main hall was opened (she didn't make if very far.) This is no all though. She also pulled herself up to the couch a few times and almost up to the wall. When she was standing up to Tom who was sitting on the couch she turned around and saw something she wanted and tried to go for it. Granted she didn't mover her feet but she is still interested in walking. CRAZY! And then, this morning I put her in the tub and turned to wash my hands. She instantly rolled over, crawled to the corner of the tub and pulled herself up. Ahhh where is my baby going. She is so eager to be grown.