find us here.

you can find updates of our alaska trip at the blog above.

(click on picture to visit site)
you can find my craft project archive at the blog above.

(click on picture to visit site)

graduation day at babs!

cory left for anchorage today to sell our 4runner.

so its just me and the girls.

luckily there was lots to do.. it was graduation day!

there were a total of 6 students that graduated, which was great.

here are some picture from the day:

(these are the six people that graduated; ages 19 through 22)

(ONC: the big white building where graduation was)

(right before things got started)

(the staff at babs. they're such amazing people)

(one of my dorm girls (erica) with her nephew)

(me and diana, my oldest dorm girl. we had a lot of fun today)

(this is me sneaking some ritz crackers into graduation)

(we went to check on the river after. it started breaking up!)

good morning bethel.

(picture of bethel, about ten in the morning)

Dog Show

we took the girls to see the annual bethel dog show. the community here is probably one of my favorite things about this place. bethel is such a small town that if anything goes on everyone comes. this little gathering was the the cultural center/library building. the room was actually pretty big and full (some people were watching out in the hall). the dog show itself was fun to watch. it seemed anyone who had a dog, brought it. the dogs weren't competing for best of breed or anything like that. they were in categories like

best bark, best spots, best trick, most obedient, most dis-obedient, and my favorite best costume.

i really think the girls enjoyed it. i know it did.

cory on the other hand, i don't know.

someone brought in their little black and white shih tzu

i'm pretty sure cory was having otis with drawls.
(otis.cory's little champion)

Flour Cup Game

Last night the girls invited Jill, their teacher, over for a sleepover.

It was so fun! I felt like I was in high school again.

We played truth or dare, watched twilight...

and played the flour cup game.

-----------------

I feel bad for cory.

First he had to put up living with one girl,

now he lives with six.

He's a good sport though!

Luckily he has Jason to keep him sane.

If you have never played the flour cup game

the rules are simple.

First you fill a small cup half way up with flour.

Then place a small coin in the cup and finish to fill the rest up.

After the flour is packed up tight, turn the cup over

and pull it off the flour slowly.

This will leave you will a small tower of flour.

Each person takes a turn cutting a sliver off the flour tower.

The person who knocks it over has to get the coin

out of the flour with only their face.

(erica is cutting the flour, sam is the girl watching)

..i lost twice..

GreenSubmarine!

I am extremely bored on days that I don't sub. SO. I decided to create a new blog. This blog is all about D.I.Y (do.it.yourself) craft projects. Sadly, there are NO craft stores anywhere near Bethel. I would need to fly to Anchorage to go to Michaels. Kinda expensive trip for some felt, don't you think. I wanted a place where I could keep track of all the projects I would do if I had the supplies... time to go online shopping!

Now when my supplies come in the mail, I will have a place to go through and pick out a project. I have about 20 projects that need to put up on the blog, my goal is to have 8 up by the end of the day. I hope you enjoy... I know I will.

Link to site: GreenSubmarine

Pictures of Bethel

Cory walked me home from the high school. He was so nice, he carried my laptop for me!

This is on our walk home, the houses you are seeing are some of the nicest in Bethel. It is refreshing to see a town where no one cares how big or beautiful your house is.

just another house.

This is the Bethel Family Clinic. If Cory or I get sick, we would go here. The hospital has native preference, which means, we don't go there. I could go to the E.R. with blood gushing out of my head, but wouldn't be seen for a long time, since I am not native. Even if the natives who are coming have something as stupid as lice... they will still be taken first. Think I am exaggerating? The exact scenario happened. Not to me, of course. But it did happen.

This is the bright red Elementary school across the street from our current apartment. It is fun seeing the kids making snowman outside during lunch.

Cabs are everywhere here. I mean EVERYWHERE.

This is where we live.

This is a picture of our bright blue door...

I love having a blue door.

K300

Bethel is the starting grounds for the Kuskokwim 300, an annual 300 mile dog sled race. The town here is so small that when anything remotely exciting happens everyone goes to enjoy the fun. Cory was in Anchorage buying groceries the night the race started, so I went alone to take some pictures…

The race starts on the frozen river in town. There were over 100 cars, trucks, and vans parked right on the ice. I felt a little nervous walking out to get the pictures. I know it won’t crack, but still the words “what if” seemed to repeat in my head.

I did experience a first while at the race…
I’ve had a runny nose the past two days, I think my body just isn’t used to the cold air. Well while I was taking pictures of the dogs everything in my nose froze! not cool.

Crystal Light

Cory flew to Anchorage today for groceries. Just so everyone knows we take a plane from Bethel to Anchorage to get food. The hour flight isn’t bad. Actually we enjoy getting out of town and driving around Anchorage!

The price of food in Bethel is ridiculous!

There is one good thing about high prices, we have completely stopped buying soda. Instead, I am living up to my Wrigley ways and now always have a full pitcher of Crystal Light in the fridge. I think if my parents moved up here they would go broke on supplying my mom with her daily Diet Coke(s). She’s not the only one, while writing this I can name another 5 people that would probably also spend all their money on Diet Coke. HAHA.

Bethel Alternative Boarding School

Cory and I have decided to become dorm parents. This was an idea we had when we first got to Bethel, but until recently did not believe it fourth was for us. Now we both feel strongly that we are supposed to be dorm parents. We went to the school/house last week to check it out. It is a three story house with an extra "crow's nest" floor reading area (you have to climb ladder like stairs to get up to the nook). I can't wait to take pictures. There are 5 girls that live in the house with us, we are literally acting in place of their parents. These girls are from the villages outside Bethel. The girls families range from a 15 mintute to 2 hour flight from the school. They come to Bethel Alternative Boarding School to get a higher education. The school is connected to the house, which is nice, they can sleep in a bit. We will hopefully be moved out of our current apartment and situated in our new place by the end of the week. We are excited to get to know the girls and help them anyway we can.

Pictures of the new house and hopefully the girls will be up soon!

nice boochy boochy

recently one of my favorite beyond favorite aunts was diagnosed with

BREAST CANCER

luckily she is one smart girl and gets checked for lumps regularly

it is in the beginning stages and hasn't spread

doctors believe they will be able to remove the cancer with surgery

- - - - - - -

it is hard being 3000 miles away and getting news like this

it makes me want to be home

my positive parents only tell me the upbeat

but i would be lying if i said i wasn't scared

our families have always been close

she gave me the best marriage advice

not to mention she came all the way to UTAH for my wedding

- - - - - - -

i was thinking

for people that might have questions about breast cancer

i would definitely have you check out monya moments

this is my dear friend kayla's mom

she was diagnosed last year and is now on her 7th chemo treatment

she tells how it is. good.bad.andugly

she is an amazing blogger

i really think some might enjoy reading her blog

....LOVE YOU SUE....

4669

bethel is such a small town that everyone's phone number starts the same:

907.543.####

when asked for our phone number, all we answer with is 4669

i feel like people here are asking for my extension

* feel free to call anytime *

To Pass The Time

Tomorrow we will have officially been in Bethel for 2 weeks! We have been busy driving the town, getting jobs, meeting our new ward.... and so on. I personally don't start work till the start of FEB. Sitting in a town where you know no one, where the sun doesn't come up till eleven, where all elderly people speak a completely different language.... i've been bored. So what did i do to curb my boredom...

SUBSTITUTE TEACHING

That is how i finally got internet. Currently, I am sitting in the band room. I have spent the day listening to kids practice their instruments. If you know me at all, you will know that I have absolutely NO musical talent or knowledge at all! Kids will ask me questions and instead of answering them I say, "Class, now who can tell me......." HAHA! The school I am at today is 7th through 12th graders. LUCKILY i have the 7th and 8th graders today! I think the older kids might see through my FAKE BAND TEACHER skills.

Let me just say that some of the kids in here are AMAZING! They have so much musical talent and most if not all of them are self taught. My last class in particular had this incredible piano player. He is only 13 and sounds just like Jim Brickman. I couldn't believe it!

What is fun about being SUB is I can teach any grade, K-12. Tomorrow I could get a call from the elementary school and be a 1st grade teacher. They even said that if they are under staffed I could be put in the Lunch Room as a cook. But they also said that rarely happens. LETS HOPE... for the children's sake.

today has been a blast!!!

one. two. three

one: I GOT TO ALASKA!
sitting in the airport got old real fast. i got up early thursday morning hoping to get on a flight to alaska... didn't happen. i was flying standby so i only got the seats that were left. if the flight is full, it's a no go. so instead of spending new years with my mr. brian in alaska, i brought in 2010 with my 5 year old sister. it was fun to spend new years with kaylee, something i will always remember. after watching the fireworks and hitting pots and pans outside with the neighbors i went to bed with hopes of getting on the next flight to anchorage. luckily, i was the last one on the plane. that flight was at 7 am, the next flight was at 3. so i spent the next 6 hours waiting, not knowing if i was even going to get on the 3 o'clock flight at all. the lady said it was over booked by two and there were 15 standbys.... not very good odds. weird thing was, i was the last one to get on plane, again! the plane ride itself from phx to anchorage is 6 hours... yuck. to make things worse, some guy was in my window seat and i didn't have the guts to tell him to move. so i sat in his seat, the middle. then the whole plane ride (or at least when i wasn't fake sleeping) he was telling me about the tattoo he had just got.

the two things i learned about this random guys tattoo:

1: it is a quote. from a star wars book, not the movie (he was very clear about that).
2: his tattoo is upside down... he said he put the tattoo upside down so he could easily read it if he looks down. creeper. oh and the tattoo is on his tummy.

two: star struck!
today i got a picture with what some might call an alaskan god:

johnathan hillstrand. captain of the time bandit.
ever seen the show deadliest catch?

cory and i love this show. we have probably seen every episode, well, maybe not all... but a lot. we took this picture in homer, alaska. it is a cute little shop that sales deadliest catch merchandise. it's cool because the actual time bandit boat docks at homer, it was fun seeing the actual boat in person!

we saw captain johnathan at the arctic roadrunner (a burger joint in anchorage). cor took me there to meet robs family. who were so fun, might i add (and joni if you ever read this, i checked out your etsy shop, and LOVE it). as we sat down to eat our "mexican ham" sandwiches, who do you know walk in and sits down two tables from us.... captain johnathan! at first i tried to be sneaky and take a picture without him knowing. but i embarrassed cory to much. lol. i didn't even know cory could get embarrassed. so instead of being sneaky, i got up and asked him if i could have a picture with him... he was really nice and said YES!

three: packing for tomorrows journey west.
as much as i have loved being in beautiful anchorage. i am really excited to actually get to bethel. tomorrow we will get a on another plane, along with all the stuff cory drove up here, and fly (only an hour) to bethel. i really just want to get situated in our new apartment. cor and i had to put all of our stuff in totes then tape them up so they are ready to ship. sadly not all of the totes made it to alaska okay.

this tote got ripped open by a rock and snow packed inside. it has been so cold the snow hasn't melted, but ticket to ride did get it pretty bad. we are pretty sure seth-jacque and tyce-rachel will understand our pain for almost loosing such a game!

well, we are all packed and ready to go. next time you hear from us we will be settled in bethel. hopefully with plenty of stories to tell!

.bethel here we come.

great idea sherrie!

It is official we are moving to Bethel, Alaska! Cory just finished his 3100 mile drive from Orem, Utah to Anchorage, Alaska. Of course, I am flying. I can barely handle the 6 hour plane ride, how would I handle 58 hours of driving? On Thursday I will fly to Anchorage to meet Cory. Then WE will get on another plane and fly to Bethel.



We are leaving friends, family, cell phone, cars, pretty much everything and anything. All we will have is each other (which sounds dorky, but is true). Man writing this makes me wonder why we are leaving in the first place. Sure, we have great jobs lined up, but come on... ALASKA. Don't you remember watching The Proposal? Her face was almost identical to our parents faces when we told them about the move. Kinda funny actually. Now, just for the record this move is temporary, 18 months max! Just like I promised Dad!

Personally I have never lived more then 15 miles away from my parents, so to be 3400 miles away might be a challenge. Just to give you an idea, we will be closer to Russia then my family. Sherrie thought that it would be fun for me to create a blog so family and friends could follow our journey in the Eskimo land.

Cory and I have been to Alaska before. It is extremely beautiful, I'll give it that. But also extremely different from Utah. For one when I visited Alaska with Cory in the summer the sun never went down, never. It just circled the sky, quite weird feeling actually. Another thing I noticed in Alaska that I have never found in Utah were the MOOSE, they are everywhere, just roaming the streets.

This is a video we took of the MOOSE ...