Our First Snow!

It sure has been awhile since I last posted but the same ole same ole has been happening. The picture you see here is our first snow outside of our yellow house! It has snowed here a couple of times already, but this is the first time that it has stayed. We woke up today and this is what we saw. We keep hearing how warm it is back in Michigan and think about how nice a sunny day would feel like again. We keep wishing we weren't already in our winter coats buttoned up as we are still freezing when we are walking to school in the mornings. However, I am sure that it will get much much worse before it gets any better. I hear that we are in for a rough winter with cold wind.

Jimmy and I have been keeping busy. We have been at school a lot these days working on lesson plans and getting things organized. We are also in the After School Program (ASP) here. It is designed to help students improve their scores on the state test. Many of the students here have failed the state reading, writing, and math tests. To help them improve, and pass the test next time, they are required to come to the ASP for two hours a week. I have it on Mondays with the elementary and Thursdays with the high school. Jimmy has it on Tuesdays with the middle school and with me on Thursdays. This takes up a lot of our time and we don't usually end up getting home until after 6:00. The weeks are starting to fly by because they are so packed. I can’t believe its already October and Halloween will be here before we know it. The kids and staff are really into Halloween and that is all my kids talk about these days. After Halloween it will only be a short while before Christmas is here. We finally were able to purchase our tickets to fly home and we are looking forward to seeing our families and Michigan again!

When it is not weekends we mainly lesson plan and have a chance to relax and watch a couple of our Netflix movies. We have been working hard on trying to get satellite TV. We have spent over 15 hours on trying to get it hooked up. A couple of teachers even volunteered their time to give us a hand and try and fix it. However, after much frustration and disappointment we cancelled our service. We decided that we could live without TV for one year. We do feel very disconnected from the outside world though, and rarely know what is happening outside of our small village. To try and make up for this, we ordered a bunch of magazines to try and get ourselves up to date on what happens outside of Toksook.

This past Thursday something unfortunate happened to us. We came home from school after a busy day at around 10:00 and our house had been broken into. The front door was wide open. We were lucky, and only some money and personal items were taken. However, it did make us feel really uncomfortable and we are taking extra precautions to ensure that it doesn't happen again. The people have been really understanding about it and have offered us many kind words. We were ok though, and nothing too valuable was taken from us.

Other than that nothing much has been happening. Jimmy and I don’t go outside much now that the cold weather has set in because it has just been too muddy. Every time we go somewhere we have to bundle up and wear our mud boots. With the ground freezing we are hoping that we will be able to get out and get some fresh air soon. I hope that when you read this that things are going well in all of your lives. It has been so nice to receive support from all of you. We enjoy and thank you for the messages that you leave on here, notes that you send, and packages!