The Yukon River Delta is a BEAUTIFUL place.

The time is flying by! The days have been getting MUCH longer, the sun rises at 7:30 now, and it's light out until about 10:00. The sun has been shining too, and it's even starting to warm up. No new snow has fallen in a while, and things are really melting. The school usually takes a cultural day to go Munuqing (ice fishing) next week about 40 miles up the river and we may not get to go because the river is already starting to melt and get unsafe in some places. This next week is state testing, and lucky 4th graders get to take the regular reading, writing and math, and an extra test for science! Woo hoo. Those poor kids are going to be all tested out when it's all done. When I started preparing my room for testing, I realized I hadn't taken many pictures lately and after testing some of these things might start coming down so I figured I better get some pictures! 

When I say it's been warming up, I mean it. The sun is hot and when the wind isn't blowing we're tempted to do things like this:

This week I got all of my prepping for the next week done on Friday, and we had conferences, report cards, and another early release, so by the end of the week I was ready for a full weekend to enjoy. I'm still enjoying it, and it's only Saturday. Here's what we've done so far: We followed sun spots around the house all afternoon Friday, laying in whatever we could get. Max made me a delicious breakfast before I even got out of bed. AND we just got back from a 3 hour hike around the ridge up above Pilot, in the tundra! We saw a fox, some song birds, lots of ravens, and moose tracks. Here are the pictures from our hike:

These berries are from the fall, and I'm sure they're fermented by now. I tasted one awhile back, and they are terribly rotten. 

Tundra Flora

Tundra Flora pt. 2

This is what the ground on the tundra looks like. Mostly lichens and mosses with some grass and plants growing through it. 

Baby moose print. 

Post holing. Notice the fox prints to the left, they are able to walk right on top of the snow. 

A GLORIOUS place to stop and lay around enjoying the sunshine. It was cold though! 

An amazing view of the Yukon River Delta. What a beautiful place we live in. 

This one's for you dad. Why do you think the ice is this color? Hint: It's very near the frozen sewage lagoon. 

49 days left!

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!