Another quarterly update from the Alaskan Waarviks! We promise we haven't been neglecting the blog because nothing interesting was happening, but just the opposite.
First, some numbers! We have been in the Bush for 130 days. That means 130 days without seeing a stoplight, Wal-Mart or Starbucks. We're at the part of winter where the daylight is at its shortest, and right now the sun rises at 11:30am and sets at 2:30pm, but we are gaining about 3 minutes a day, and that pace will pick up as we tilt slowly back towards the sun. We were in the -50's for the week leading up to Christmas, but for the majority of November/December, we've been between 10 and -20, which is pretty warm weather for us.
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| Cupcake |
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| Belle |
This year for Halloween we opted for a spaghetti dinner/costume contest instead of trying to put on a bunch of games for the village. Joe and Alice won 2nd and 3rd in the adult costume contest, Macy got 2nd place in her category, and Arwen and Clara won 2nd and 3rd for the younger kids. For our prizes, we took home a small cock-pot, a sled, a $25 iTunes card and Sorry! the board game. We did not go trick-or-treating again this year; it seems a little odd to go door to door dressed in costumes when your costume is buried under snow gear.
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| Chocolate Chip Cookie |
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| Peter Parker |
For Arwen's 3rd birthday, someone had brought some frozen pizza up to the school, a rarity here, so we cooked the pizza and made ice cream cone cupcakes, which looked like they were ice cream cones. Watching people's reactions when they bit into these treats was pretty hilarious. Yes, we're short on entertainment here. The LED balloons we had were a big hit, especially when the power went out and the gym was pitch-black.
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| Arwen got help with her candles! |
Thanksgiving dinner was one of the nicer events we've had in the village. We put the tables together to create two very long tables, making everyone sit together a lot closer than they normally do. The sight of the village all sitting down together pleasantly enjoying their meal is a good memory to have. Alice prepared the turkeys again and we did the cooking and cleaning up with the help of one of the locals, who also pitched in to help on all of the other meals as well.
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| Thanksgiving at the school |
For our family's Thanksgiving dinner, we had our neighbors come over. The neighbor is a short-term resident, brought in to work on the water treatment plant, and his wife joined him just before Thanksgiving. He's been great to have, since he's spent a good bit of time doing other people's jobs around town when they would not. This includes starting the village generator, flushing out the water system, and helping to fix a leak we had in the utilidor right in front of our trailer.
The utilidor is a raised wall-looking box that the water/sewage pipes run through. It's heavily insulated and kept warm, but on Thanksgiving the far end, away from our trailer, froze and the neighbor had a heater thawing it while we enjoyed our dinner. Right about dessert time, he poked his head out of the door, joking that he needed to check for smoke. He didn't see smoke as much as he saw flames! The utilidor was on fire, and of course we don't have anything close to a fire department. He ran down the utilidor without grabbing his coat (it was -20), another worker friend who was over threw on a coat and went after, and Joe grabbed all of his winter gear and a fire extinguisher and jogged the 200 yards down the utilidor.
The neighbor was busy ripping the utilidor apart while the other worker was running a bucket brigade. Eventually, the fire extinguisher had to be used to put out the flames, and the impromptu gang of fire fighters poured snow on all the burning embers until the neighbor, still without a coat at -20, decided to head back indoors. The water lines were burned through, but the neighbor had everything rebuilt and fixed within 24 hours. Disaster averted!
Our water froze one other time, but it was thankfully only the cold water to one of the bathrooms. We filled the back of the toilet from the nearby sink when we had to use a second toilet and took all of our showers in the other bathroom, so it was only a minor inconvenience until it eventually thawed itself out. Thankfully, our sewage hasn't frozen this year (that we know of, I guess). Last year it was spilling out underneath out trailer, which was disgusting.
When we arrived last year, the former inhabitant had stocked up on giant mouse traps and had poison dumped everywhere (great for a family with kids and a dog), but we never saw any critters in the house. This was probably thanks to the weasel living under the trailer. This year, though, the weasel has been absent since October and a tiny shrew-looking rodent started running around the kitchen at night and stealing the dog's food. He hasn't been seen in a couple of weeks. This might have something to do with the lynx tracks that have been spotted behind our house! That also may be why we haven't seen our weasel, either...
The Christmas program at the school was a lot more low-key than last year's Frosty play. Alyeska flew in Santa again, the village kids sang a few songs and played on the fiddle and we had turkey dinner again, and then it was the start of 24 days of vacation, which we're just over halfway through right now!
While the vacation certainly is relaxing, there's been a few downsides. First, the maintenance man took another extended vacation for the one week the temperatures were below -40 and of course the village power was going out twice a day. We woke up at 4 am one morning to the blackness of an Alaskan winter without electricity and Joe threw on his gear and headed outside to fire up the trusty generator. It fired up, warmed up, and started to run the school and the trailers when it ran an electrical fault and shut off. Joe fired it up again with similar results. Third time, still shutting off as soon as it was used to power the trailers. No worries, on to the backup generator! Joe turned the key...nothing....and the village power was still out. If the temperature was above -20, this wouldn't be too much of a concern, but at -45, it's a different story.
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| Kids at the playground |
The neighbor came out to help, couldn't get the school generators going, so he went over to help with the village generators, which still weren't on. Two musicians were visiting the school at the time, and the young guy came out to help. Batteries were swapped out, and eventually, by having one good battery hooked up to the old generator and running jumper cables to another good battery, the old generator fired up! Just about that time the village power kicked on. We had been without power or heat for just under 2 hours.
The power continued to go out at least once a day for the next several days, but thankfully the village power would come back on within 20 minutes. There really isn't a more comforting sight than seeing smoke billowing out of both trailers, the school and the generator house, and knowing that at Arctic temperatures, the buildings are nice and warm, and you have artificial light to drive away the darkness of the night.
Macy's 7th birthday was a low-key family event, which didn't bother her one bit, considering she got pretty much all of the Disney princes. Now the princesses won't be lonely anymore! She requested a no-sugar cake, which was fine because we just devoured a sugary chocolate cake Joe and Sara Lee made together for Alice's birthday the day before. We ended up feasting on banana bread and homemade whipped topping. Macy spent the whole day ordering Gavin (and everyone else) to play Barbies with her and playing games with the family.
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| Gift from Nana- 1st sewing machine! |
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| Birthday gift from us- Prince Barbies |
Christmas came at last! The kids received three gifts this year, in the tradition of the Three Wise Men: a gold gift (something they really wanted), a myrrh gift (something they really need) and a frankincense gift (a gift that is intangible). Their frankincense gift this year was given in support of a fundraising auction for an adoption-related cause. The "lack" of presents didn't bother the kids at all; of course, they did receive presents from the extended family secret santa exchange, Alyeska, and a church in North Pole that chose to sponsor our village.
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| Santa, his elf, and Joe opening up the boxes of fruit they brought to the village. |
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| Christmas morning |
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| Arwen's Christmas dress from a secret friend in North Pole |
The biggest bummer this Christmas has been the same as last, missing out on our extended families Christmas celebrations. We're still saving money for the adoption and chose to spend the holidays here in the village. We were able to Skype with some family and saw some uploaded videos of others, which helped. Also, we got 6 new games to play with the kids and have been spending a lot of time together as a family, helping to keep the Christmas Blues away.
