Teacher in-service week

Teacher in-service is held in Fairbanks and is usually our September family trip to town. Usually, we're put up at an apartment-style hotel in a 2-bedroom room with a large living room, a dining area and a kitchen. This year, in-service was held in August, and at the dorms of UAF. Nothing against UAF, but no college dorm, especially not the Freshman hall, is large-family friendly. The bathroom was a large shared bathroom with public showers. We were on the men's floor, so the girls had to go down a floor to use the bathroom. Also, we were stuck eating college food all week.

 It actually didn't turn out as bad as it sounds. The food was surprisingly good.The district office was nice to us, though, and got us 2 adjoining room, each with 2 twin beds.  Alice and the two older girls took one room, while Gavin, Arwen and I took the other. Each adult got a luxurious solid-rock twin bed to themselves, and the kids shared.

Alice and I spent the evenings sitting in the floor of the dorm hall and stopping other teachers on their way to the restroom or their rooms for conversation (living in the Bush can make you a bit socially desperate). The kids and Alice spent their days wandering around the campus, blowing bubbles and playing hopscotch. It was still summer classes, so not a lot of college students were there. The campus was set up on a hill and had an amazing view of Fairbanks, and on one clear day we could even see Denali. While I would not recommend living in a dorm to anyone, not even a college freshman, we survived just fine.

Denali viewed from a bench at UAF

A few days in, we noticed Molly Clara started calling the dorms "home." She thought we had moved in for good. Goes to show what our kids think we're capable of, and how flexible they are.

On one of the last days of in-service, we drove out to North Pole, Alaska, to see Santa Claus' house. It had some pretty amazing fudge. It also had THE Santa. He was a pretty cool guy; when we mentioned adoption to him, he started talking about the people in his church who had adopted, and the group that had just returned from doing missions work in Uganda. We found out from some other people that he also has tattoos on his arms. Gavin was impressed with his genuine Santa beard. I was impressed with the fudge; Oreo Cheesecake was my favorite. One piece fed me and the four kids. A few of Santa's genuine flying reindeer (ok, not really) hung out and posed for pictures.

After in-service was over, we transferred over to Chena Hot Springs. On the drive where we saw 19 moose over 4 days in July, we saw....one. Actually, only I saw one, a cow in a stream that had just pulled her head out of the water. The problem was Fall had arrived in Alaska. During the 9 days we were in town, we noticed the trees changing to a definitely more yellow hue. With the average high in mid-October below freezing, we have about 2 months of Fall before winter. When we flew back to Stevens, we reminded the kids that the next time we saw Fairbanks, it would likely be covered in snow.

Macy enjoyed her first horse ride ever while we were at the resort. Well, she sort of enjoyed it. The horse was big for a horse, certainly no pony. The instructors did not really give Macy a lot of insight into what to do; they just told me to help her on the horse. I picked her up on the platform and set her on the saddle...and the horse decided to shift away as I did. She almost fell off the horse, and I had to jump down the platform to steady her. For most of the rest of the ride, she clung to the horn of the saddle for dear life. By the end of the 15 minute ride, though, she was smiling like crazy, and talked about it for a while afterwards, so we figure she enjoyed it.

Alice certainly did NOT enjoy her dentist visit, getting 2 more wisdom teeth removed, but it went moderately better than last time. The pain was a lot less, but the nausea was just as bad, even after Alice took herself off the pain medicine. She's still not feeling 100%, but at least it's over with.

We, of course, did our marathon shopping while in town. We also found out our children do not enjoy shopping one bit. We think it was a combination of being away from home and not being exposed to shopping often. There were really only 5 occasions where we went shopping with the kids over the last 12 months. There behavior showed it.

Molly Clara decided it was appropriate, if her legs were tired, to lay down in the middle of the aisle, flat on her back, with her hands comfortably folded behind her head as if she was watching clouds go by. Arwen, who suffered the most from being out of her routine, decided that screaming was the best way to deal with the stress. At one point on the last day, after I put a bag of cherries in the shopping cart, she yelled "YUCK!" and covered her mouth like she was holding back vomit, then grabbed the cherry bag and threw them out of the cart (she honestly loves cherries). Yeah, I was THAT guy with THAT 2 year old at the grocery store. We had to leave and wait her out for about 45 minutes in the parking lot before she was ready to behave herself.

The fact that our kids are not accustomed to shopping isn't too much of a concern. If our kids have a life-long aversion to Wal-Mart and large grocery stores, that's ok with me.

Only in Alaska

Fairbanks is always full of interesting sights. Apparently, in Fairbanks, you sleep wherever you want. This rather tired gentleman slept with his head a few inches from a fairly busy road across from a shopping center parking lot. We also saw crows eating away at duck tape keeping plastic over a broken window. They were probably just doing the owner a favor, reminding him that he needed to get a real window before temperatures dropped below -40 in December. The garbage trucks in Fairbanks are pretty cool, and the workers all wear solid orange jumpers like Star Wars X-Wing pilots. We told the kids one of them was Luke Skywalker. An older, much more overweight Luke Skywalker...

We are back in Stevens Village for the duration of the first semester, unless we're forced to go back for health reasons or get to go back for adoption purposes. We're focusing heavily on keeping healthy to avoid the pneumonia and strep of last year.

Thankfully, Arwen will be 3 before December, so that very well may be the last time I ever take a 2 year old shopping, unless we adopt under 3 years of age (I will watch 2 year old grandkids, but I will NOT take them shopping). Whew. Glad to be done with THAT stage of my life.