The snow continues

The past week has been really busy for both Jimmy and I. A lot of people were out sick again this week with the flu and cold. I ended up subbing the after school program on Tuesday because no one else was not sick and able to cover. This meant that I stayed until 6:00 this week on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. It was nice that I could help out, and even nicer that I will get a large paycheck. However, it did burn me out. The past week seemed to crawl for the both of us. I had two full mornings and an afternoon full of Terra Nova testing with my kids. The kids were really great sports about it, which was a huge relief.

It seems like everyday this week we had to shovel a mound of snow when we got done with school in order to get back into our house. Whiteouts were a common thing around Toksook. This morning (Sunday) we got woken up at 4:12 AM, 5:00AM, and 5:30AM this morning because our heater was not working properly. When the wind is as strong, as it was last night, the heater can’t get the fuel on its own. Therefore, we have to turn the heater off and pump it manually then turn it back on. If you choose to ignore it, it will continue to have a nice loud, high-pitch beeping sound until you get up and turn it off. Then it was hard to fall back asleep each time because the wind was knocking so hard it seemed like the windows were about to break! It was so windy that at times we couldn’t even see the house next to us! Our neighbor and her son came over and shoveled a little bit for us so we could get out. The picture you see here is what it looked like this morning when we were trying to go outside. Jimmy spent awhile shoveling it out. We were informed it was better to shovel stairs going up and then down instead of shoveling the whole thing out. This way you are only shoveling a little, instead of the whole walk way every time. It is just amazing how quickly the wind brings the snow back once you have shoveled. Thankfully, this should be our last month of really hard winter until the spring comes! Jimmy is the brave one that usually shovels as you see in the picture. I was warm inside cleaning and doing dishes. To cover up and keep warm when you are shoveling Jimmy is sporting the usual clothing that we have to wear – boots, bibs, hoodie, coat, hat, gloves, scarf, and then goggles. I know you are all going to run out and get cool gear so you can look like us!

I just received my ipod today. I was so excited to open it, and today is spent trying to put songs on it. We are currently at school right now, and we are supposed to be working on our lesson plans for the week. However, it is VERY cold in here (around 57 degrees) and our hands keep freezing. Jimmy and I both have our hoodies on and winter coats but we are still both freezing. It gets like this in the school on windy days because the wind comes right through our walls. The sad thing is Jimmy’s classroom is actually colder than mine because it’s upstairs. I think we are going to have to come back tomorrow on our vacation day and type our lesson plans. Then, we can borrow the key from another teacher (who has a classroom in the new part of our school) that can set the temperature.

It will be nice to have a short week and my kids will have to endure another round of testing on Tuesday. This time it’s to see if the kids are proficient in English. They say February is always testing month and I now see that it is true! Thankfully the most important tests that the students take aren’t until April. Only 15 more weeks of school left until we fly back to Michigan where there is warmer weather, trees, cars, highways, stores, TV, and Internet at home!