just a quick hello

Today I'm home with the kids because our babysitter called out sick. I spent my morning filling out long-overdue paperwork to get Porter's CDIB and replace Seren's card. The rest of my day will be spent cleaning up various messes and trying to steal a nap at some point, before loading the kids up in the car and heading out to pick up some items I dropped off at the jeweler for repair and then to MEHS to have dinner with Stephen and our group of students in the school cafeteria.

Last week was the first Extended Family Night at MEHS, where we had a chance to meet our group (most of them, anyway), try the cafeteria fare, and view the chaos that is Family Night first-hand. It was fun. We have a pretty good group of kids and Seren immediately made friends with one of the girls, who ended up taking her through the line to get her plate and helping her eat all of her food. This ritual will continue to take place every other Thursday night at the place of our choice (our home, the cafeteria, a restaurant, or whatever). On one hand, it's a relief not to have our own home set up for 10 kids every Wednesday night, but I do miss the personal aspects of Advisee Dinner. I only hope that we are able to build similar relationships with these kids. That said, any of our Orme kids who are reading this can rest assured that we miss you terribly and that Seren still talks about all of you. You'll always be family.

Speaking of our kids, Seren and Porter are doing very well. Seren still surprises me with how smart she is and Porter is developing into quite a little person. Porter is currently cutting the last of his first year molars, but seems to be handling it well, aside from an upset belly. Seren is starting to learn phonics and draws associations to that in almost everything she does. She spent the whole morning at the dining table looking at the pictures on her placemat, saying things like "Baseball. B-b-b-baseball." She's a smart cookie. Porter still isn't walking, but he is loving his walker. He zooms around the house at top speed on his own, but he loves it when Seren pushes him around. They play so well together.

I'm afraid that's all the updates I have for now. The last Sitka Farmer's Market of the season will be on Saturday, so we are looking forward to being there. The last cruise ship will dock on the 29th, so I don't expect to be working past that point. We are definitely starting to feel like this is our home now. We're still unpacking and settling in, but Sitka is a good place for us. I just hope this winter will be as easy as everyone says. :)

60°F and blindingly sunny!

Yes, this is the view from my school as I do lunch duty today. There are days when I can't see to the last light post due to the fog, but the sun is nice, too. Naturally, this is the day when I'm not wearing my contacts, so I can't wear my sunglasses to cope with the brightness.

a great day in Sitka, Alaska!

This is the first Labor Day I've celebrated in a few years, as this is the first public school I've worked for in a few years. I've got to admit that this has been a better holiday than most!

This morning, JoElle and I did our best to sleep in, but we still have children. It was a slow morning nevertheless, but we got out of the house before noon. Once out, we took the kids, our dog, my Utilikilt and our FiveFingers to the Starrigavan Recreation Area. We walked the boardwalk through the estuary and had a good time watching some songbirds in the grass and the last of the salmon spawning run (humpies mostly, better known as pink salmon to people who don't fish up here, also regarded as the worst-tasting of the salmon species). After walking the boardwalk, we crossed the road to try to walk along the bay on the Mosquito Cove loop, but the trail was closed due to bear activity recently. We drove around Starrigavan briefly, then drove to another spot where we could watch the waves crashing on the shore. Seren and I got out to throw rocks in the ocean and we all were amused by seeing surfers working as hard as they could to catch some 5-footers. When we were done walking around, we dropped the dog off at home and I changed into some more casual attire.

Before leaving the house, we found our driveway blocked by an unfamiliar vehicle. As I turned around to see who it was, I found Bill Hutton at the window of our car! Bill is the former Superintendent at MEHS and was the man who headed up the search that hired me. I met him in person for the first time about a week ago and we had a really good talk at that time, and he was standing in our driveway just now with a grin on his face and a bag of fresh halibut in his hands. He wished us a happy Labor Day, passed off the fish, and checked to make sure that the apartment was fine for us (he'd checked it out for us when we still lived 3000 miles away). After I ran the fish in to the fridge, we got back out on the road.

We headed into town and hit up the Agave Restaurant because Seren had been expressing a desire for fish (I thought about cooking what we'd just received, but JoElle was enjoying a day out in the sun). We got the kids fish and chips, JoElle picked up a halibut fish taco, and I got a prawn and rice platter. We were all very happy with the food and worked it off by walking around on Lincoln Street downtown. We were very pleased to find out that FiveFingers shoes will be arriving in town this spring, so we may work on saving up to get the models we've both had our eyes on. We wrapped up our roaming by stopping for a shake and a chocolate root beer float at Harry Race Pharmacy, then let Seren play around a bit on the grass at Totem Square. With Porter wiped out, we finally came home. All in all, a very good day.

PICTURES!!

Starrigavan Estuary - we live in a truly beautiful place!

Berries!

JoElle is obsessed with the size of these slugs.

See? Obsessed.

A heron fishing in the estuary.

Humpies busy rotting (some live, some dead).

JoElle and Seren playing in Totem Park, with Sitka Channel and Japonski Island behind them.

unexpected day home

So, I'm not supposed to be home today. In fact, I was at work a bit early, tracked down some information I needed to resolve an important question, met with another faculty member and fixed a technology issues I've been having, and began prepping my classes. I was getting ready to pull down a tenor sax and start figuring out how to fix its poorly-sealing octave key when I got the text messages from the kids' babysitter saying that Porter had not only had a blowout diaper this morning, but he'd also thrown up twice within an hour.

I quickly checked with JoElle and we determined that I could get out of work easier than she could (she's hourly, whereas I have a few days of leave built up already). I then hurried over to the office, where it was determined that one of our AmeriCorps volunteers would be able to cover things for me today (fortunately, he was once the drum major of his high school band, so he has a musical background and won't be completely lost). Following that, I rushed out a set of sub plans and got on the road. Both kids are now home with me (turns out that Porter had puked a third time before I got there) and Seren's working her way through a bowl of the soup that I made for Porter (chicken broth with brown rice, carrots, and celery, of which he ate about six spoonfuls) while Porter naps in her bed because his room needs fumigated from the aforementioned blowout.

So, since I'm home and have some time on my hands with the sick one napping and the other watching Toy Story, here's a bit of an update on what I've been doing these past two weeks.

Last Monday, I got to meet the MEHS students for the first time. We have students from as far away as the International Date Line and Barrow, so Sitka is an experience for some of them. There are also some locals and a good number from the Anchorage area.

We spent the first two and a half days of last week doing an activity known as Edgecamp. This is intended as a combination of orientation, icebreaker for new students (and faculty), and pep rally for the school year. It succeeded to some degree on all of those counts. I was heading up one of the hikes that half of the students did (in 50-student groups), hoping to be able to meet a bunch of kids and convince them to join my music classes. I don't know how many were converted by our conversations, but I had a great time hiking about ten miles in two days and seeing some awesome sights (everything from starfish to hermit crabs to spawning salmon).

I've been riding my bike to work every day, which means that I cross the O'Connell Bridge (right) twice each day. It's a lot taller than it looks in that picture, which is nice for my thighs.

I love working where I do. I'm only teaching three classes right now due to scheduling arrangements (and I want to move one of those classes to a different period next semester). We're on a semesterly block schedule, so most teachers only teach four classes and most students only take four classes (much like being in college). I have 19 kids in the choir, 6 in my general music class, and 6 in the pep band. If I can resolve the scheduling issue for the pep band, that number should double at least.

The priorities of the faculty and administration are in the right place. I don't know how many times my principal has told me so far that "family comes first." I really appreciate knowing that he means that (in fact, he repeated it to me again this morning when I was requesting time to take care of the sick kid). He expanded on that thought once by explaining that "if your family isn't happy, you won't stay here, and we want you to stay." If all administrators learned that on the first day of their Educational Administration MA, 80% of faculty problems would disappear. As far as the teachers go, there's a small amount of cynicism (you always have that when you ask a bunch of intelligent and highly-trained people to work together and follow one or two people's leadership), but a remarkable amount of energy and enthusiasm for each other and for the kids. I look forward to working with my colleagues and to being on teams with them because I know that I'm going to come away charged up.

Sitka is still treating us and the kids well. Seren loves going to the babysitter and getting out around town. Porter is still at the heavy lump of constant trouble stage of development, but enjoying himself a lot as well. JoElle is tired of working (retail is rough on her), but is still seeming happier and healthier than I've seen her in a while. It may be that having somewhat regular hours and needing to put on work clothes helps (those of you familiar with depression will know that such things help). The stupid dog has learned a new trick, too. Porter loves to throw his food when he's full, bored, overwhelmed by the amount of food in front of him, feeling contrary, awake, etc. Invariably, we yell at him and usually give him a slap on the hand, which is followed by him hollering for a few seconds. Nika has learned that this combination of noises ("Porter!!" *slap* "AAAAAA") means that she needs to come over and clean up the noodles or carrots or kale or meat that has been thrown on the floor. As long as it came from him, she'll eat anything except cabbage.

Later today, we'll be going to the school (if the kids aren't too sick) to have dinner with our "extended family," which is somewhat like the advisee group that we had at Orme. I'll be working this Saturday, because MEHS does Saturday school once a month in an effort to both speed the school year and increase the number of class meeting times.

We'll try to not wait so long before posting again, but it's really easy to get into a routine and forget that there's a lot of stuff we're doing that might be interesting to family and friends.

part 2

Thanks for hanging there, guys! Here are the rest of the updates, just like I promised.

Last weekend we attended the first ever Sitka Seafood Festival, where we enjoyed a community free-for-all parade; community vendors, displays, and booths; live entertainment; fresh seafood; games, such as fish-head toss (like egg toss, but with fish heads); face painting; and just a great show of support and enthusiasm from the entire community. One of the performances we saw was a group called NANDA, which did a sort of rock & roll-circus-ninja-action-comedy-dance-movie thing they call "The Jacket" performed live on stage, but synchronized to an audio recording for the narration, music, and special effects. They are four pretty awesome guys and very talented acrobats based out of Washington (state). If you ever have the opportunity to see them perform, DO IT. You will not regret it. The highlight of the show, though, was when they had just completed a particularly intense fighting scene and amidst the silence of the audience and pause in the audio from the show, Seren piped up very matter-of-factly and said, "Silly boys!" Our entire section was laughing and agreeing with her!

Speaking of Seren, she and Porter are doing very well. We were in a crunch for a while there, trying to find care for the two of them while we were both working, but it seemed every option in town was far more expensive than we could reasonably afford. However, just this Friday, we found a full-time sitter who will take them both into her home where she lives with her husband, two teenage children, and a 5-year-old son, whom Seren has already gotten to know a little bit and play with. We really think it's a good match for our kids and for our situation and are very thankful that we are able to afford this solution. We have also decided not to put Seren in preschool yet because the rates are so prohibitive. Instead, I will continue to provide basic education for her at home. We looked at the state standards for Kindergarten in Alaska, and found that she's halfway there already! She's well on her way to reading, she counts and does simple addition and subtraction in her head, she's getting really good at character recognition and she's starting phonic recognition, she understands chronology and has relative spacial awareness, and she's even learning how to draw pictures and letters of the alphabet without any assistance from us! We are very proud of her and know that once we are able to put her in school, she will be just fine. Porter is also advancing nicely. He has a few phrases he uses in repetition now. "Peek-a-boo!" and "tickle-tickle-tickle" are frequently heard when we are playing with him. He's still not walking, but he's purposefully letting go of whatever he's hanging on to while standing to balance now and his efforts get recognized with tons of praise and applause. His appetite has only become bigger since we moved out here... he even eats more than Seren at just about every meal! As he gets taller, he's beginning to become a little leaner, but he's still a solid kid, and very strong. He has gained a few new teeth since we left Arizona, too. This puts the the tally up to 10: four on the top front, plus two top molars, and four on the bottom front.

Stephen had two classroom days last week and has in-service all this week to prepare for school to start next Monday. He's excited to get back in the saddle and he seems to (still) have great support from the school for his program, so he's really enjoying getting everything set up.

We will continue to try to post updates to the blog as often as possible, but please be patient while we adjust to our new schedules. We want to share all we can with all of you, but if waiting an extra day or two to post here means an extra hour in the evening to cuddle with the kids, or take a walk, or take the kids to the library, you can bet that's probably what we're up to.

updates (pt.1 of 2) & apologies

I'm going to start by apologizing to all of our dear readers who have missed us for the last... how long has it been? Almost two weeks? REALLY??? OK, I'm so very sorry for making all of you wait that long to hear from us. It is entirely my fault because Stephen (and a few others, you know who you are) has been after me to post to the blog for almost that long and I really dropped the ball.

So without further ado, UPDATES!

I'm working now, as you should all know from Stephen's last post. Random House is treating me as well as can be expected in the retail world. The owners are good people and shrewd businesspeople. I handle the front sales floor on most days, which keeps me running around quite a bit, but I've learned a lot of interesting things about Russian fairy tales and traditions and Native Alaskan artists and their works. I've talked to Olga Borland (the owner, who is in the store on most days) recently about my employment and she says she's very impressed with my work ethic and that she intends to keep me past September, which was originally my seasonal cut-off date, as off-season pick-up help during inventories and store re-organization before the next tourist season rolls around. Until then, I'll continue to work about 35 hours per week in the store, as I have been for the last 2½ weeks.

Some of you might not yet know that we received our shipment from Arizona, which means that we now have a house full of boxes, packing material, and household items we don't need, in general. It's amazing that we purged so much stuff before we left and, after having lived out of three suitcases for 6 weeks, we realize now that we didn't need about a third of what we packed up to go with us. Lesson learned, we're slowly putting our home together the way we want it and getting rid of everything else. The good news in this is that there is a consignment clothing store nearby for nicer items and two donation centers in town for everything else, one of which is a Salvation Army store attached to a real Salvation Army church. The only significance in that is that neither Stephen nor I could ever remember having seen a Salvation Army church before, but both knew they existed somewhere.

There are plenty more things for me to write about, but rather than make this post too long and difficult to read, I'm going to invite you to stayed tuned to the blog and join me again either tomorrow or Tuesday for the rest of the updates. :)

four weeks

Today marks our fourth week in Sitka. In some ways, it feels like we've always been here. In others, well, there's a lot still sinking in.

JoElle has gone off to work for the first time since before Seren was born. She worked largely out of the home where we last were, but now she's in a job where she's being paid an hourly wage to work somewhere that has a dress code and everything. She's working for the Russian America Company at Random House downtown here, and seems to really enjoy the work and her bosses (although adapting to the hours has been tough on all of us).

Porter seems to be really settling in and enjoying himself. We set his crib up as a daybed, which he hated for one night and then realized that he could roll himself out whenever he gets bored with napping. This has resulted in FAR shorter naps. He's also getting around well enough that he is being a real pain to his sister.

Seren has been loving it here. Whether she's going for short walks to the store or the mail or whether she's heading out to pick salmonberries or play with the daughter of our landlords, she loves where we live. Every couple of days, she begs us to go to the library, which is her favorite spot in town! She also loves the Whale Park.

I've been working on setting up our house since Thursday, when all of our worldly goods were delivered in brown paper wrapping. Almost everything arrived undamaged, and I've been going around seeking out places to store things and trying to figure out where all of our things are (not all of the packing was done in the most logical manner). I've also been working on figuring out a day care/preschool solution for the kids, as Seren is of preschool age (although the cost of sending her may be an issue - is it really $250-$300 a month everywhere for only 10 hours a week?). Since our household showed up, my work getting my classroom and office inventoried and set up has taken a back seat, but I'm glad to have my bike back so that I can start commuting.

Music teachers: Alaska has some of the simplest standards I've ever seen. On the one hand, this is awesome because it means that the bar is set low. On the other hand, there are detailed standards for math, science, social studies, and English. I guess at least I know what the priorities are here?

I know that it's going to sink in at some point that we actually live in Alaska, and the huge distances are going to become a reality instead of just something that I understand intellectually. For now, every time I open up a library book or get a piece of mail and see "Sitka, AK" written, it throws me for a little bit of a loop. In a good way.