Sunday, December 1, 2013

A White Thanksgiving and A Countdown Until Christmas in Oregon!

We're going to talk about this long weekend backwards, because that's how the pictures uploaded. 

Today we went on a walk because it was beautiful out, and we realized that the hillside of the village we live on NEVER gets sunlight this time of year, and probably won't until May. So we have to get out of the house in order to get some vitamin D. 

It is 9 degrees today, with a windchill that makes it feel like -6. When we got back from our walk neither of us could feel our cheeks. However, I got some new boots (Sorel Glacier Boots) and they are made for -100 degrees, so my feet were toasty warm the whole time. We walked out on the river a little bit, but don't worry mom, we didn't go out in the middle. We're still a bit scared of falling through, even though people are already zooming up and down the river on Hondas and Snow Machines.


Rosy cheeks and a frozen mustache

The frozen Yukon behind me


These holes in the ice are for catching
Arctic Lamprey Eels. 

Walking on the river

This is where the sun lies at high noon.

Our snazzy WARM boots


An ice flow from a spring coming out
from under the cliff. 

The cliffs


Frozen moose head

Max and his Moose-cicle



This is sunrise on the village, as you can see,
they get sun, we do not. 


I got caught eating pumpkin pie for breakfast
Now for Thanksgiving…

We cooked our first turkey ever, and as you can see we did not burn it, or the house down, so it was an overall success.




Fresh things up here aren't very common,
so with our turkey, we had instant stuffing,
instant mashed potatoes, a store bought
pumpkin pie, and some sparkling cider.
It was quite decadent, other than the mashed
 potatoes which were terrible. 
After we ate we lounged a bit, fought off the turkey sleepies, and then went for a nice walk up to the airstrip.







This is what the dump looks like when it is on fire,
and it smells 100x's worse than it looks. 
I am looking forward to these next few weeks, because we get to decorate my classroom all wintry, and do fun Christmas activities in class. Luckily up here, I think we're about the least religious people here, so Christmas is not banned, and I think it would be frowned upon for me to NOT celebrate Christmas with my class. This Friday is also an early release, so this week is essentially a 4 day week, then we've got 2 full weeks of school until break starts. 20 days until we fly out (if we're lucky) and 22 days until we are back in Oregon! 

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Reflections are good for reflecting.

Today is one of the more beautiful days I've seen in Pilot. It snowed last night and is about 25 degrees. The river is starting to freeze up along the edges and there are huge chunks of ice floating down. I don't get out of the house during daylight very often now, as our day shortens, so I figured I better take advantage of today. 

The sun rise was beautiful this morning.
This is at about 10:30, out our guest bedroom window. 

I had a friend join me on my walk down to the river. 




A perfect reflection.




When I got down to the river today it was so beautiful I didn't want to leave, so I just kept walking. While out on my walk I realized that since the water is so much lower the cliff that usually keeps us from walking any further along the river was no longer submerged, so I walked around it and just kept on walking! It was awesome to see some new territory, and it was even more beautiful than where I had started… Here are the pictures from my discovery:








The shadows are blue.




Here are some pictures out our living room window of the river and the village. This place is so much more beautiful with a little dusting of snow. The houses are so bright and cheerfully colored, and when the snow covers up the mud it looks like a paradise. If only we didn't have those stupid power lines always photobombing my village pictures. 



I'm feeling really happy today. It could be the sunshine, or the snow, or just the fact that I got out of the house today and was able to be active and breath some fresh air.